Between transnational socialism and white privilege : Afrikaner woman worker’s ‘library’ in the 1930s and 1940s

Drwal, Małgorzata2023-03-272023Małgorzata Drwal (2023) Between Transnational Socialism and White Privilege: Afrikaner Woman Worker’s ‘Library’ in the 1930s and 1940s, Dutch Crossing, 47:1, 63-76, DOI: 10.1080/03096564.2022.2144594.0309-6564 (print)1759-7854 (online)10.1080/03096564.2022.2144594http://hdl.handle.net/2263/90223In this article, I set out to introduce the Garment Workers Union (GWU) prose as a neglected part of Afrikaans-language literature. I offer an overview of texts written or translated by the GWU members and published in the official trade union organ Die Klerewerker/The Garment Worker. The presented workers’ reading list is divided into original Afrikaans writings and translations from English into Afrikaans. All these texts offered the newly created white working class a new identification, manoeuvring between belonging to the national imagined community of Afrikaners based on the concept of nation and whiteness, and to a transnational workers’ community based on the category of class. Looking at the impact of the Dutch and English language traditions in South Africa, I propose that the way in which European conventions made their way to Afrikaans literature, was class-based. Textsrecognized as artistic, incorporated in the Afrikaans literary canon, drew heavily on Dutch tradition. The English language turned out to be the medium that also circulated a less elitist thought. Therefore, it was English that enabled the movement of texts from Europe and the United States to South Africa that shaped the South African white working-class, including its Afrikaner part.en© 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an electronic version of an article published in Dutch Crossing, vol. 47, no. 1, pp. 63-76, 2023. doi : 10.1080/03096564.2022.2144594. Dutch Crossing is available online at : https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ydtc20.Afrikaans literatureAfrikaans working-class literatureGarment Workers’ Union (GWU)Trade union pressWhite privilegeSocialist literatureTranslationHumanities articles SDG-04SDG-04: Quality educationBetween transnational socialism and white privilege : Afrikaner woman worker’s ‘library’ in the 1930s and 1940sPostprint Article